The Seven Chapter 2
by Unkn0wn Writ3r
Summary: Chapter two.


Richard smirked at Dina's bold challenge. "You? Fight me?" Richard laughed mockingly, not sure whether to take this threat seriously. "I will be the one to lead the citizens of Ignation to a bright future. You are steering Ignation only to ruin!" Richard's smirk turned sour as Dina spoke. "I am bringing glory to Ignation. We deserve more than just the deserts and volcanoes that we are confined to!"

"Even so, your path is breaking our nation. You must be stopped, and I will be the one to stop you."

"I'm getting tired of this." Richard said, drawing his crossbows. "If you want to fight, let's fight."

"I couldn't agree more." Dina said advancing closer to Richard. The two bowed towards each other, acknowledging each other's strength in traditional Ignation dueling fashion. After bowing, the two circled each other, crossbows raised and swords poised. Then, like a flash of lightning, Dina lunged, her blades bursting into flame. Richard leaped back, firing a volley at Dina. Dina parried it, the explosion whipping her long dark hair around her. Dina continued to pursue Richard as he threw exploding bolt after exploding bolt. Richard continued to skirt around the edge of Dina's reach, trying to get a hit in. Dina whirled around like a tornado of fire, deflecting blow after blow, her blades trailing fire as she hunted Richard, eyes alight with focus. It seemed that the constant retreat was taking its toll on Richard, as Dina spotted a weakness in his defense, a slowed movement. Dina saw her chance and she took it, lunging forward, throwing balance away. It was the realization of her dreams, aspirations, and careful planning. It all had built up to this moment. Then Dina felt a blinding pain as one of Richard's bolts pierced her ribs. She stumbled to the ground, incapacitated. "It was a trick." Dina muttered, forcing the words past the pain of her broken ribs. "Yes it was. All that match, I was waiting for you to think that I was tired, that you had a chance to take me out, and when you lunged, I was ready." Richard knelt down, his red eyes staring into Dina's dusky ones. "I will not rest and I will not falter until Ignation reaches from the highest heights of Soraj to the darkest depths of Seisan." Richard stood up, carefully keeping out of Dina's reach as he addressed Roxy. "I claim this person by the right of the victor's spoils." Roxy looked at Richard suspiciously. "What does that mean?"

"The victor's spoils dictate that the winner of a Ignation duel, gains ownership of the loser. Therefore, I claim Dina as my spoils, and why is the successor to the Faedom throne wandering on the outskirts of the great Ignation desert with her lone guard and two smugglers?"

"I merely wanted to see a small bit of Ignation's vast territory and the smugglers are accompaning me back to the Faedom." Roxy replied, cool as a cucumber.

"Wise decision. I hear that some monster is destroying any Faedom forces it happens upon. I would urge you to hurry home and warn your father, the Oberon, to stay closer to his palace and farther away from the front lines."

"Thank you for your advice, Richard. Now, if you have nothing else to say, I'll be on my way."

"May your fire burn long and bright." With that, Richard picked up Dina gently and carried her onto his Leviathan, placing her gently in a seat. "Why are you doing this?" Dina asked, fear, hatred, and something else burning in her eyes. "Because, I want you by my side. Now rest Brightfire. You need to regenerate."

Dame looked at the disappearing sight of the Ignation's emperor's personal Leviathan. "Great." She thought. "Now I lost my biggest pay in most likely my entire career." Dame turned to see Celest ushering Roxy toward her Leviathan, striking up a conversation. "Hold on Celest. We are NOT taking her back to the Faedom."

"Why not Dame?" Celest questioned, stopping Roxy and Lucina as she turned to argue with her partner.

"Because we are smugglers, not a transportation service, and since I doubt you have a job for us, I am going back to Soraj and try to turn a profit of all the time I wasted here."

"I can make it worth your while if you take me back to the Faedom." Roxy said, her eyes sparkling. "I will still pay you the two million crowns you requested for the smuggling job." Dame looked at Roxy sideways, her chance at easy wealth warring with years of distrust. "How can I be sure this isn't some elaborate trap that I'm walking into?"

"I promise on the Faedom throne that this is not a trap." Roxy said, her golden eyes not breaking contact from Dame's blue ones for even a hair of a second. Dame kept her suspicion alive for a few moments before she said to Celest in a tired voice, "Get them settled for the flight." Celest grinned as she said, "You got it!" As Celest ushered them on, Lucina looked at Dame, her purple eyes, almost black in their intensity, glared at her as she said, "I don't trust or like you."

"Hello to you to." Dame replied as she walked past Lucina toward the cockpit. Dame gave a groan as she settled down in her pilot's seat. From the outskirts of the Great Ignation Desert to Ainesgrove, the capital of the Faedom, would be twenty hours of straight flying, and that was flying fast. Dame reached out to the cooler on her right that she always kept supplied with caffeinated beverages, exclusively for long flights like this. She cracked open a can and poured its contents into the non-spill cup on her left. Now that she was ready, she went through the usual protocol for trips like this. "Are all of you strapped down?" Dame said through the intercom. A chorus of yeses answered back. "Okay then. I am starting our flight now." Thus, Dame lifted her Leviathan, which she called Lightchaser, into the air and sped toward Ainesgrove, hoping that this would just end quickly and that she could go back to her apartment, but not without those two million crowns she had been promised. Celest sat next to Roxy, her brain still connecting this girl to the saintlike princess she had heard about. "Are you really the princess of Faedom?"

"Yes I am." Roxy said, a small smile gracing her face. "I am a healer and my goal is to bring peace to the warring nations of Syricia." Celest gave a small whistle. "That's pretty ambitious." Lucina, who sat on Roxy's right, laughed, her laugh sounding sharp, but not unpleasant. "That isn't all. She wants to do it without spilling a single drop of blood." Celest looked at Roxy with something amounting to awe and pity. "I hope you succeed and soon. War doesn't help anyone." Roxy nodded, her face somber with the recollection of the Faedom's brutal campaign against Daemia. "It looks like it's getting dark out. Do we fall asleep like this or are there beds?"

"There are beds, but if you want to get to them safely, then you have to wait till Dame says movement is safe." Celest replied, glancing out the window, admiring the sun setting on the faraway dunes of the Great Ignation Desert. It was beautiful. Soon, she heard Dame's voice, clear and precise due to the good intercom system Dame had installed, notify them that it was safe to move. "OK. The guest beds are that way." Celest said, pointing to the left hand corridor. "Take one left and go down the stairs and then take the door on your immediate right and you're there. There are three rooms so space shouldn't be a problem. Good night Roxy and Lucina." When Celest had made sure that the two had found the rooms and were situated, she wished them one last good night, and headed for the cockpit. She found Dame sitting there, the cup that she put caffeine in for long flights was 75% full. "You sure you'll stay awake?" Dame smiled and replied. "Have I ever fallen asleep before?" Celest nodded, satisfied, and headed back down the middle hallway to the common room, where passengers sat and where the exit was. Celest took a right, walking to the first door on the right, and opening it and flopping down on the bed that laid inside. She was asleep in minutes. Dame didn't pay attention to the sunset and she didn't pay attention to the sunrise. She didn't register the yawns of her sleeping passengers as the awoke in the small hours of the morning. All Dame was focused on was getting to Faedom and collecting those two million crowns.

A sentry stood on guard in one of the many ancient structures that the ancestors of the Faedom had built during their war with the ancestors of Daemia. He yawned, boredom ruling him. There had been tell of a monster in this area, so everyone was on high alert and even the Oberon was here. The sentry sat down on a chair, surveying the utterly calm night. The Fae forest was by no means quiet, quite the opposite, it blazed with life all day and all night. Owls hooted, bats screeched, and nocturnal animals prowled the forest floor, looking for a meal, but there was no monster, no disturbance in the daily routine of the long tedious night watches. Then it appeared. Rumors had it that the monster was some sort of beast made of shadows and nightmares, but that was far from the truth. It was a moving tree. A great hulking colossus in the shape of a man lumbered out of the Fae forest, his feet made of convoluted roots crashing down with each step. The Monster's arms and legs were branches, thick as battering rams, interwoven with vines in some imitation of human bone and muscle. Its hands were less thicker branches, but the sentry could tell that those branches could crush stone into dust as easily as one steps on an ant. The Monster's body was a massive tangle of thorns and vines, a tree trunk more indestructible than any metal construct providing a crude skeleton. The monster's head was a circular mass of wood, a split in it providing a mouth. Where eyes should have been, there were two beacons of jade light shone like two moons in the quiet evening. The entire Monster was cloaked in moss and thorns. The sentry stood there, transfixed, as if this was all some kind of strange dream. The Monster had a certain beauty, a beauty that spoke of ancient things, a beauty wild and primordial. As the Monster turned its head to look at the sentry, an alarm rang. Shouts of "Monster at the east gate!" rang, obliterating the peace of the night. The spell that had stopped the sentry was broken as the Monster raised one gigantic foot and stomped it down on the fortress. Generations of work done by the best Faedom stonemasons to make the fortresses timeless was undone in an instant. The Monster continued its rampage through the fortress, each step crushing dozens of Faedom soldiers. The residual soldiers gathered around one man. This was the Oberon, the king of Faedom. He soared into the sky, his sword drawn and light radiating from him, on the wings of light that distinguished the royal Fae line. Oberon soared around the monster, stabbing and jabbing with his sword as the monster swung clumsily after him. It seemed that Oberon's unrelenting assault would topple this force of nature. As Oberon dodged another strike, he dove in towards the Monster's head, driving his sword deep into it's neck. The vines around the Monster's neck sprang to life, gripping the Oberon's hands as the neck regenerated around the sword, imprisoning it. Oberon tried to escape, but the vines held him firmly. The Monster reached up and grabbed Oberon in one massive hand,the vines retreating as the Monster's grip tightened. The Monster lifted Oberon up to his mouth, the two jade moons now having the appearance of small malachite suns. The Monster opened his mouth, breathing a noxious combination of stink-weed and rotting flesh and revealing a mass of spear sized splinters and thorns resembling teeth. The Monster spoke, its voice deep and commanding, sounding like a sharp wind through a forest of malevolent trees. "I am Matthias Thatcher, King of Daemia, and I have come for vengeance." So saying, Matthias crushed the Oberon in his iron grip. "Behold the fate of the Faedom!" Matthias roared at the stunned soldiers. Matthias stretched out his hand and let fall the crushed body of the Oberon, now just a lump of bloodied flesh. Matthias lumbered over to the soldiers, so nicely gathered like sheep to the slaughter, and stretched out one giant crimson hand.

Dame landed in the docks that Roxy pointed out. Once she had docked Lightchaser, she leaned back in her chair, utterly exhausted. "Celest. See that the princess pays my fee in full. I'm too tired." Celest nodded, tossing a blanket at Dame before ushering Roxy and Lucina out. A crowd had gathered around the dock of the Lightchaser. Attendants, citizens, and soldiers, all dressed in deepest black. "What's wrong?" Roxy asked. The royal adviser pushed and shoved his way through the crowd to kneel before Roxy saying, "Princess, most grave news. Your father the Oberon has been killed in battle."


End file.
